News

Delivering sustainable energy is a familiar call to action here in the UK, but what might that look like for communities in the Global South? This film shares the experiences of those working on the ground to bring community energy to Malawi.

Last month the CESET team returned to Malawi to re-visit the Chipopoma mini hydro plant to see how they could provide additional technical support to increase its sustainability. Chipopoma mini hydro plant is a community-based mini-hydro developed with the personal initiation of John Sailence. The hydro plant is intended to supply electricity to the Manchewe community in Khondowe, Livingstonia, 128 Km from Mzuzu and 482 KM from Lilongwe. The mini-hydro plant operates by a 53kVA generator coupled with a locally made twin nozzle pelton hydraulic turbine.

CESET PI Professor Vanesa Castán Broto and her colleague Marta Olazabal have published a new paper in Buildings and Cities that explores what tools enable the institutionalisation of adaptation practices in local governments?

The post holder will work in close collaboration with the CESET and MECS Co-Investigator, Dr Long Seng To, focusing on the landscape of CES in Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique and collaborating with other MECS researchers to build on new opportunities and knowledge emerging from community energy and sustainable energy transitions.

On 6th of July CESET PI Professor Vanesa Castán Broto, researcher Dr Hita Unnikrishnan, Co-Investigaor Getachew Bekele and Dr Lorraine Dongo of the Urban Institute particpated in the Development Studies Association Online Conference hosted by the University College London. 

CESET Co-I Josh Kirshner presented in a panel on ‘Energy colonialism: Roots, racialization, recurrent patterns,’ hosted by the Colonial-Postcolonial-Decolonial Working Group at the British International Studies Association (BISA) conference 2022 - held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, June 15-17th. Professor Franziska Müller and Johanna Tunn (both at the University of Hamburg, Germany) were panel chair and organizer.

The CESET team, led by our Ethiopian Co-Investigator Mulualem G. Gebreslassie have published an article on “Delivering an of-grid transition to sustainable energy in Ethiopia and Mozambique” in Energy, Sustainability and Society.

Last month the CESET team excitedly travelled to Malawi for its first face to face meeting as a project team! [Delayed due to COVID and travel restrictions]. The meeting was hosted by our Malawian colleagues at Mzuzu University. The team were in awe of Malawi’s beautiful green countryside and were made very welcome by the friendly people we encountered.  

Congratualtions to our UK CESET Dr Idalina Baptista and her colleague on a new publication in the Transactions of the British Institute of Britsh Geographers. "From problematisation to propositionality: Advancing southern urban infrastructure debates"  explores the notion of propositionality to advance southern urban infrastructure debates towards more anticipatory forms of scholarship.